A variety of personal items including sunglasses, electronic devices such as GPS-based navigational devices, personal music players, and the like are desirable and/or useful to a motor vehicle operator during operation of the vehicle. It is inconvenient and potentially unsafe for such items to be simply placed loose in the vehicle. For that reason, motor vehicle users require convenient places to store and hold such personal items, from which the items can be conveniently accessed prior to or even during operation of the vehicle. Consider as an example an operator driving a vehicle on a cloudy day, when during the drive the clouds part, the sun shines, and the operator then requires her sunglasses. As another example, the operator may need to consult a GPS/navigational device for directions while traveling to an unfamiliar destination. Conventional storage options designed into motor vehicles include storage bins incorporated into, for example, glove boxes, consoles, overhead consoles, center stack consoles, instrument panels, door map pockets, seatback pockets and the like.
Of course, motor vehicles typically include storage bins of an appropriate size to receive a variety of differently sized and shaped items. However, storage of a small item in a large storage bin, particularly in a vehicle that will be moving, turning, braking, etc. during operation, allows the item to shift during vehicle operation. This could potentially result in damage to the stored item. Also, the noise created by the item shifting about in the storage bin is unpleasant and potentially distracting to the vehicle operator. In turn, the operator may have certain items as discussed above that are required during operation of the vehicle. Having to search for such items in a large storage bin holding numerous other items presents inconvenience and potentially a hazard to the operator, particularly if the operator finds that she has need of the item while operating the vehicle.
Thus, particularly for storage of and ready access to small but useful and frequently used items, it is known to provide storage bins adapted specially for the items. As non-limiting examples, it is known to provide dedicated storage bins configured to be capable only of holding sunglasses. Likewise, it is known to provide storage bins configured only to hold GPS and other small electronic devices, and others. Such storage bins lack versatility because they typically hold only the specific item which they were designed to hold, and may not be able to accommodate other differently sized and/or shaped devices. As a result a need exists for additional storage options in the interior trim of a motor vehicle.